"If we analyze some of the public events that comprised this Catholic invasion along with the language of contemporary pamphlets, ballads, and polemic involved in promoting and resisting the English Counter-Reformation, a sense of deep cultural contradiction emerges."

This essay discusses how the Elizabethan convention of all-male casts has its roots in Classical and bardic theatrical tradition. It also features links to related sites on Shakespeare, Elizabethan theatre in general, and Restoration drama. Includes a bibliography.

This lengthy analysis of the authors' lives and works includes sections titled "New influences on the Drama", "Contemporary appreciation of Beaumont and FletcherÕs work", "FletcherÕs Metrical Style: comparison with that of Shakespeare ", "Excellence of FletcherÕs stage effects" and "Qualities of language and style in Beaumont and FletcherÕs plays."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: G. C. Macaulay

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part Two

This lengthy analysis of the author's life and work includes sections titled "Ben JonsonÕs character and friendships", "Early life", "Eminence in letters", "Early Plays", "His Tragedies", "His later Comedies" and "His place in Literature."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: Ashley H. Thorndike

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part Two

"Each of the articles in this collection has extensive footnotes documenting the sources of quotations and ideas found therein. I have not therefore attempted to include every work cited in this bibliography, but rather to give a guide to secondary works which relate specifically to early modern literature and geography and which would be useful to a reader researching this topic for the first time or hoping to further their reading."

"Usually located at the periphery of social action, the Restoration stage fop oftensuccessfully monopolizes whatever social space in which he finds himself, whichinevitably leads to the displacement of the masculine rakes and libertines as the locusof social attention. Through the manifestation of timely, social theatricality, the fop isable to manipulate social space, reconfiguring it in such a way that he becomes itsdominant masculine presence. When fops such as Fopling Flutter, Sir Courtly Nice,and Lord Foppington become the centres of attention, they become not onlyentertaining fools, but serious threats to hegemonic masculinity."

This lengthy analysis of the authors' lives and works includes sections titled "MarstonÕs life", "His prominence in the War of the Theatres", "MarstonÕs Tragedies; Antonio and Mellida", "DekkerÕs early activities; Value of his work; His Comedies: The Shomakers Holiday; Old Fortunatus; The Honest Whore" amd "Importance of his prose work."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: W. Macneile Dixon

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part Two

This lengthy analysis of early English comedy includes sections on "John Heywood" , "The collision of romantic and didactic tendencies in Tudor Drama ", "Prodigal son plays", and "EdwardsÕs and WhetstoneÕs theory of the function of Comedy ."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: F. S. Boas

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part One

This lengthy analysis of early English tragedy includes sections on "Study, imitation and reproduction of Senecan tragedy", "Early English Tragicomedies", "Gismond of Salerne and its sources: motives of its authors", "The relations between Locrine and Selimus", and "the legacy of the Classics in Tragedy."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: John W. Cunliffe

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part One

"Early Modern Literary Studies is a refereed journal serving as a formal arena for scholarly discussion and as an academic resource for researchers in the area of 16th and 17 century English literature. Articles in EMLS examine English literature, literary culture, and language during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; responses to published papers are also published as part of a Readers' Forum. Reviews evaluate recent work as well as academic tools of interest to scholars in the field. EMLS is committed to gathering and to maintaining links to the most useful and comprehensive internet resources for Renaissance scholars, including archives, electronic texts, discussion groups, and beyond."

This lengthy analysis of early English religious drama includes sections on "Concordia Regularis", "The vernacular in Medieval Drama", "Corpus Christi Plays", "Everyman", "Vicissitudes in the reigns of the Tudor sovereigns", and "The last of the Moralities."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: W. Creizenach

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part One

This lengthy analysis of the Elizabethan sonnet includes sections on "The model of construction, "Spenser and his French masters", "Sir Philip SidneyÕs Astorphel and Stella ", "ConstableÕs Diana", "Elizabethan critics of the sonnet", and "The sonnet of compliment."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: Sidney Lee

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume III: English, Renascence and Reformation

This lengthy analysis of Elizabethan theater includes sections on "Early Companies of Players", "Grounds of objection to the Drama ", "The Rose", "Value of John de WittÕs drawing of the Swan", "The Audience", a nd "Social position of the Actor ."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: Harold Child

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part Two

This lengthy analysis of the classical Renaissance in England includes sections on "The birth of the classical renascence", "Erasmus", "William Lily", "Sir Thomas More", and "The spread of the classical renascence."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: Rev. T. M. LIindsay

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume III: English, Renascence and Reformation

"This study sets out to remedy part of this neglect by examining the development of literary collections during the period when they became a printed genre directed to a diverse readership, from the Restoration to the beginning of the nineteenth century. By analyzing the way these collections shape and are shaped by the cultural contexts in which they were produced and by explicating the kind of reading they invite,this book argues that literary anthologies mediate between individual readers and literary culture. This mediation redefines readers' subjectivity by representing literature as art and reading as a critical activity. Anthologies sell texts of choice and the choice of texts. "

This lengthy analysis of the authors' lives and works includes sections titled "Biographical details ", "MiddletonÕs non-dramatic work", "His realism", "Fluency and naturalness of his work", "Plays by Rowley alone; their sincerity and nobility of aim", "RowleyÕs influence on Middleton", and "His dramatic genius."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: Arthur Symons

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part Two

This lengthy analysis of English poetry from the Renaissance and Reformation era includes sections on "TottelÕs Miscellany ", "Sir Thomas Wyatt", "Henry Howard, earl of Surrey", "Nicholas Grimald", and "Humfrey Gifford."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: Harold Child

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume III: English, Renascence and Reformation

"Popular English broadside ballads about monstrous children (the Renaissance term for deformed babies) reflect the use by their writers of principles of Reformation biblical interpretation. The ballads interpret the children as signs of God's wrath that should move people to repentance and reform. The interpretation itself is not uniquely Protestant; however, the use of hermeneutic principles to set forth the interpretation in popular documents is significant. These principles were consistently and widely disseminated as part of a movement among some Protestants to make biblical interpretation the responsibility of all individual Protestants. The use of these principles even in popular ballads about sensational subjects suggests that the nature and practice of interpretation was itself a popular subject."

"Renaissance Forum is an interdisciplinary refereed journal. It specialises in early-modern English literary and historical scholarship and in the critical methodologies of these fields. The journal is published biannually by an editorial board based in the Departments of English and History at the University of Hull. "

This lengthy analysis of British sacred ports includes sections on "The sacred poets a group with personal links, not a new school of poetry ", "George HerbertÕs personality and divided aims reflected in his poems", "CrashawÕs relation to Herbert", "Henry VaughanÕs secular poetry ", and "Quarles and emblem poetry ."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: Rev. F. E. Hutchinson

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume VII: English , Cavalier and Puritan

This lengthy analysis of Scottish popular poetry of the17th and 18th centuries includes sections on "The long Blight on Scottish Secular Verse", "Exceptional popularity of Lyndsay", "Peculiarity of the relation between English and Scottish Song in the Seventeenth Century", "Allan Ramsay", "Robert Crawford", "Jacobite Songs in Hogg's Jacobite Relics of Scotland", and "Robert Fergusson: his personality and poetic qualities."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: T. F. Henderson

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume IX: English, From Steele and Addison to Pope and Swift

This lengthy analysis of the author's life and work includes sections on "The Scottish literary revival of the eighteenth century", "His German studies; Ballad poetry", "The Lady of the Lake", "Scott and Byron", "His treatment of love" and "The influence of his work."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: T. F. Henderson

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume XII: English, The Romantic Revival, The Nineteenth Century, I

This lengthy analysis of the authors' lives and works includes sections titled "Meagreness of biographical details", "TourneurÕs two Tragedies", "John Webster: periods of his literary activity", "Secret of WebsterÕs genius: his profound knowledge of human character and sense of tragic issues", and "His imagination and poetic power."

Contains: Historical Context, Content Analysis, Bibliography

Author: C. E. Vaughan

From:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume V: English THE DRAMA TO 1642 Part Two

"While the term Renaissance was once regarded almost exclusively by cultural historians in terms of an epoch of humanist learning and courtly or aristocratic writing, its boundaries, temporal and ideological, are in the process of being re-mapped by New Historicist, Cultural Materialist, feminist and post-colonial critics."

"In 1592 Robert Beale, a diplomat clerk to the English Privy Council, wrote a lengthy tract entitled A Treatise of the Office of a Councellor and Principall Secretarie to her Majestie in which he noted that 'A Secretarie must . . . have the "booke of Ortelius" Mapps, a booke of the Mappes of England, w[i]th a particular note of the divisions of the shires into Hundreds, Lathes, Wappentaes, and what Noblemen, Gent[lemen] and others be residing in every one of them; what Citties, Burrows, Markett Townes, Villages;. . . and if anie other plotts or maps come to his handes, let them be kept safelie.' By the time this advice was proffered it had long been the policy of Queen Elizabeth's first minister, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, to collect maps of all kinds. These ranged from Christopher Saxton's detailed county maps of England and Wales to the Ortelius world atlas mentioned by Beale. Accompanying every one of the Saxton county maps the first minister appended lists of justices of the peace, the agents of Tudor government at the local level; accompanying the Ortelius atlas are notes on routes to the West Indies. These maps are the palimpsests of a new kind of political entity, the nation-state, whose gaze looked inwards, over a firmly demarcated national territory to be described, anatomized and controlled, and outwards towards the Atlantic with an eye to colonial expansion. This essay will trace the genealogy of these maps by correlating forms of political and economic organization with cartographic practice, beginning with the medieval mappamundi and ending with the rise of the estate map in the late sixteenth century."